


Cats, 'Claws, and Other Animal Disasters

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Coitus Interruptus, Cooking, Cunnilingus, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Oral Sex, Pets, Sex Toys, Slice of Life, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 14:06:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12255897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: Ten years after destroying the Institute, Glory and Desdemona have retired to quiet life on a farm, surrounded by their loving animals. When Carrington brings them a deathclaw egg, they face an unexpected addition to the family.





	Cats, 'Claws, and Other Animal Disasters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ialpiriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ialpiriel/gifts).



> I absolutely adore this ship and couldn't resist the idea of them having a warm and fuzzy happy ending! There is some smut (alas, not as much as originally intended) but it ended up being more slice of life than anticipated. I also feel like giving fair warning that in addition to the canon-typical violence there is some violence towards the animals, but I promise all the pets stay safe and Glory and Dez get the happy ending they so richly deserve.
> 
> Much gratitude towards my beta, ~~and more info when the anon period ends!~~ OKAY SO I still have much gratitude for my beta but also want to shout out to [andrastes_grace](http://archiveofourown.org/users/andrastes_grace/pseuds/andrastes_grace) for sharing the good postcanon Glory/Dez feels and the fact that they deserve a farm with a million animals. There are also a couple of other tumblr posts regarding packmule librarians of the post-apocalypse and trans and Jewish headcanons, all of which wound their way into the fic in some way. Dez is a trans Jewish lady in this fic, and I am neither trans or Jewish. I love her very much, but acknowledge and apologize for any errors I may have made.
> 
> Plus, I feel very fortunate for being assigned to write for one of my fandom BFFs. Del, ilu <3

Glory grips the pillow, elbows jutting skyward as she arches into Desdemona's mouth, knees hooked over her wife's shoulders and breathing in rapid gasps. Glory gasps, moans, scrunches her eyes and curls her lips, heels digging into Desdemona's ribs as she starts to crest that peak, moans sharpening into a caterwauling—

" _Mrowwww_!" screams Asshole, scratching at the door.

Desdemona breaks into giggles, smothering them against Glory's thigh.

"Asshole! Five minutes!" Glory begs, thumping her fist against the wall.

"I'll let him in. Real quick," Desdemona promises, rising to kiss Glory's nose. She smells like sex and morning breath, better than any pre-war perfume. Over a decade together now and Glory still savors each small moment, all the ways they've found to make their bodies fit.

Asshole blinks balefully as Desdemona opens the door, orange tail lashing. He's a spectacularly ugly cat missing half his left ear, face shaped by a variety of brawls and a naturally sour temperament. He stomps into the room like a general.

"Fucking voyeur," Glory grumbles, rolling to glare at the cat.

Asshole glares back.

Ophelia chirps from under the bed, poking her head out. Ophelia's a much lovelier cat, sleek and grey, but now that Asshole's in the room she goes to stand beside him, also staring at Glory.

"Perverts. Both of you."

"C'mon, they don't mean anything by it," Desdemona chuckles, slipping back into bed with Glory. She kisses Glory's scalp, runs her hands down biceps, skips to the ribs and belly. She crooks a finger through Glory's wet folds, tugs up and into the clit. "Let's get back to making you feel good, hm?"

Glory crosses her ankles, pulls Desdemona's wrist up so her hand cups her hips instead. "Nuh-uh. Asshole ruined the moment. Gotta go back to making out." She can only maintain the mock-anger for so long though, snickering. "So c'mon. Make out with me, _wife_." Even now the word hangs sweet and heavy on the tongue, like peaches soaked in sunlight. They've lived, they've _survived_ , they're _married_ and now they're just two women who've earned their happy endings.

"I don't know, is my wife an exhibitionist?" Desdemona asks, nuzzling the curve of Glory's jaw. Her eyelashes tickle against the skin, making Glory giggle.

"I can ignore Asshole and Ophelia, as long as you... mm," Glory murmurs, twisting herself on top of Desdemona, legs twined and fingers threaded in Dez's hair. She lowers her head and nibbles at Desdemona's lip with just an edge of teeth. The taste of sex and morning breath still lingers, gets even better when Desdemona presses back, her thigh grinding up against the slick patch between Glory's thighs. They keep kissing, breath passing lips, mouths, lungs. History in every heartbeat, and Glory's breath comes fast, faster. She bears down on Desdemona's thigh, rutting against that thick cushion of flesh over the hard muscle and bone. Would bite her lip to keep from whimpering, except that Desdemona twists her hand into the back of Glory's hair, tugs her head back.

"Glory, Glory, you're so beautiful when you come," Desdemona says, husky and sweet. Glory can taste the mountains in her voice, jagged peaks of desire. "Come for me, hon. You're gorgeous when I'm fucking your brains out. Pretty as a picture, prettier than any pin-up."

Glory bucks her hips, clamps her thighs. Her belly coils tight, pushes up moans that she clenches behind her teeth. They spring loose anyway with a whimper and she comes with a stuttering gasp of breath. She flops over Desdemona, shoulders heaving, heart thumping down against Desdemona's breast, as if trying to knock 'hello' to Desdemona's own.

"Feeling good?" Desdemona asks, kissing her neck.

"Oh yeah," Glory says. She rolls sideways, crosses a foot over Desdemona's ankle and snuggles up. The fresh sweat sticks them together, half-tangled in the sheets; sticky, messy, wonderful.

Ophelia chirps, setting her paws on the edge of the bed. Tail wriggling furiously, she hops up and settles against Desdemona's head.

Desdemona turns her head and spits fur. "Fluffy-butt."

"Should've named her that."

"Nah, that's rude. Maybe just 'Fluffy.'"

"Fluffy is the _worst_ name for a cat," Glory points out. “Might as well just put up a sign saying, ‘Two women, live alone.’”

Desdemona snorts. "We're not alone. We have Ophelia, Asshole, Baby, Bodie, Sam..."

"You're hopeless."

"Hopelessly in love with you."

"Now you're just buttering me up. What do you want?"

Desdemona bats her lashes. "Five more minutes in bed?"

Glory sighs, making a big show of rolling her eyes. "Fine, fine. You get _sleepy_ even when you're not the one coming!"

"Not all of us are ageless," Desdemona says agreeably.

Glory winces, sucks her teeth. Desdemona has fine lines around her eyes now, and a mouth bracketed by joy. They've had so much to celebrate over the years; disbanding the Railroad and building themselves a quiet farm with no old history, no shadows stalking them in the grass. Desdemona's had the luxury of aging. She has a home to set the mezuzah on the doorpost, to mark the sanctity of time as her thighs spread thick and generous with food and comfort. She (finally) quit smoking now that she thought she might live long enough to die of a blood clot while taking her estradiol. No more time in shadows, but time for the sun to kiss her hands brown and tan with age spots and grace notes.

Glory was never programmed to age. She has only the uncertain obsolescence of whenever her chip deteriorates.

Desdemona winces too. Takes Glory's hands, kisses the knuckles. "Still happy to make out with you."

"I love you too," Glory says, or starts to say, because Ophelia walks her dainty cat-paws across Desdemona's sternum and turns to fluff her tail under Glory's nose. Glory sneezes. "Asshole."

"Asshole's on the floor."

Glory rolls her eyes. "You know what I meant. But sure, let's cuddle."

. . .

Five minutes of cuddling becomes ten, then fifteen, then Asshole mrowling to be let out, so Glory rolls herself into a pair of boxers and a thin white undershirt and goes to open the door. Bodie's already at the door, red fur in bright halo around her floppy ears and lolling tongue as she— as usual— tries to wriggle her way into the house to lick Glory's hand.

"No, Bodie," Glory says, squeezing out to crouch on the porch. She scratches the dog behind the ears, takes a curious sniff. "You know, we'd let you in if you just stopped rolling in shit," she informs the dog.

Bodie— short for Boudicca, a name they have used a grand total of _once_ since Desdemona read the name in a book— gives a dejected whine and thumps her tail against the floorboards.

Glory gives Bodie one last pet, lets Ophelia out, then goes to the bathroom to wash her hands. Desdemona's already brushing her hair, humming softly, and Glory goes to the other sink to scrub her palms with a fat bar of yellow soap. The hers-and-hers sinks aren't new-new, just new-ish; when Glory and Dez first moved in, the fact they had a house to themselves had felt like sufficient luxury. Sharing one sink between the two of them was already better than sharing one sink between however many agents were moving through the various Railroad headquarters at any one time. They’ve only had the new sink for a couple years now, but Glory's still unashamedly _delighted_ at no longer having to elbow Desdemona out of the sink in order to brush her teeth.

Glory puts a finger's worth of tooth powder onto her brush— another luxury, having a _brush_ instead of a piece of rough cloth or her own finger— and works it over her teeth.

"Carrington should be coming in sometime today," Desdemona says. Idle chatter, nothing that Glory doesn't already know, but nice to check in.

"Mhm," Glory mumbles around her mouthful of paste. She swishes her cheeks, spits. She takes a palmful of water from the tap and rinses again. "Looking forward to it."

Desdemona ties her hair back, stretches her arms overhead. "What do you think, for breakfast? We've got a lovely bunch of ripe tomatoes, I was thinking shakshuka." She unscrews the cap off her pill bottle and dry-swallows the tablet.

"We got any of that crusty bread from Starlight?" At Desdemona's nod, Glory grins. "Yeah, sounds good."

Glory leaves the house as Desdemona starts cooking the onions and garlic, and makes her way to the chicken coop. She scatters handfuls of feed into their pen, the girls clucking and ruffling about the edges. The little umbrella set over the pen was Desdemona's idea, to offer shade for the more sunburn-prone rad chickens from Acadia. They seem to like it, pink and timid and hiding in the shadows. Glory's not quite sure what the feathered girls think about that but as long as it keeps them happy and laying, she's not complaining. She gathers eggs and sets them in a cloth-lined basket on the front porch.

Then there's the usual feeding and petting of Baby. The elderly mare is sunning herself when Glory goes to check on her, gives a long whuff through her nostrils and nuzzles at Glory's pockets in search of hidden treats.

"Not today, girl," Glory informs her.

Baby shuts her eyes and dozes.

Glory waters the veggies and mutfruit, then checks the fruit trees around the perimeter. They're in the lazy days of late summer, the peaches ripening and the cherry tree long finished. The apple tree has finished blossoming, the branches thick with unripe lumps of green fruit. A seasonal clock, of sorts.

Maybe they'll plan a greenhouse, next year. Or the year after. It'll be nice to have another project.

Glory harvests in no particular order, going by what's most ripe and ready rather than trying to glean the plants clean. She fills her basket in a rainbow of peaches and eggplants, tomatoes and beans, peppers and sweet potato. She lingers over a promising melon, then picks that too. There had been an explosion in crop diversity when someone discovered a prewar seed vault some years back. Deacon's seen enough of the pre-war books to claim that even these heirlooms don't look like they're supposed to, but Glory doesn't really give a damn. Better to grow your own future than cry that everything's not as it should have been.

Glory re-enters the house with her loot. The kitchen shimmers with low heat and the smells of paprika and cayenne. Desdemona uses a spoon to create a couple of wells in the tomato sauce, and Glory cracks the fresh eggs into them. Desdemona adds another generous sprinkle of pepper, a pinch of salt, and sets the dish in the oven. Desdemona flicks the radio to Magnolia's familiar croons and starts the kettle to boil. Glory tugs Desdemona’s hand, pulling her in with a slow twirl. It’s not much of a dance, more of a sway, but Desdemona smiles. Just like that, Glory’s swept away all over again.

They sit in companionable silence when they eat. Desdemona handles the washing up after as Glory goes to mend the fence around the herb garden. They've been making do with a couple crates stacked in front of the hole, but Sam, the black and white terrier, will probably figure her way around it eventually. Glory whistles as she works, wavering off-key as the sun sticks the back of her shirt to her neck. The grit on her hands weighs lighter than the memory of gunpowder and steel. Desdemona comes out after a while, and helps by passing nails and occasionally shooing Sam away.

Sam and Bodie are the first ones to spot Carrington when he comes up the dirt road. The two dogs kick up a flurry of dirt as they circle him, barking. Glory straightens up to wave.

Carrington waves back with one hand, the other cradling a cloth-wrapped bundle. His hair is more salt than pepper these days, his jowls soft and heavy. The years have been good to him.

"Got a present?" Glory hollers.

Carrington snorts, but saves his breath for when he's close enough he won't have to yell. "Ran into some hunters, just cleared a nest of deathclaws. The egg’s their payment for treating their injured."

Desdemona's eyebrows shoot up. "Deathclaw eggs are good eating. We could make a giant scramble with that, maybe some omelettes."

"You sure it's not gonna hatch?" Glory says flatly, eyeing the egg.

Carrington shrugs. "Fresh egg, and if we eat it tomorrow we'll be fine."

"Shell's too thick to candle anyway," Desdemona says, taking the egg from Carrington. "C'mon in. You missed breakfast, but we've got plenty of fruit and some eggs if you're hungry."

. . .

Carrington chuckles, following Desdemona as Glory finishes driving the last nails into the fence. Glory walks into the kitchen, enters the familiar rush of old memories and idle chatter.

The Railroad was never supposed to be forever, but it had been hard to imagine otherwise when she'd first joined. Now with the Institute destroyed and the Minutemen leadership officially welcoming synths, they've scattered to the winds. Deacon's gone west, far west; made noises about seeing the Pacific Ocean. He occasionally sends back bright postcards of neon lights and the people he's met. PAM settled in with KL-E-0 in Goodneighbor, and has been conducting a long chess game with Desdemona via letters. (Dez hasn't won a single game yet, but enjoys trying.) Tinker Tom and Drummer Boy got married and settled in at County Crossing, where Tom continues tinkering and Drummer Boy's started teaching at the local school. Their letters are full of joy and enthusiasm. Even Shaun— and Glory hesitates to call him part of the Railroad, but what is he, if not a rescued synth who had nowhere else to turn?— has found a home with the Longs over in Sanctuary. He's spent the past ten years in a child's chassis, and will probably want to age into adulthood, but... again, decisions. Time. There are only so many shelled chassis around, and they are so much more than interchangeable parts.

(Glory thinks immortality might just be an excuse for procrastination.)

"Deacon said he made some friends in the Mojave. I think he mentioned a 'Fisto'?" Desdemona says.

Carrington laughs, pouring fresh water into his glass, then topping up Desdemona's. "Sometimes I wonder how much he's pulling our legs. Remember when he mentioned that mutant town?"

"Dunno if it's that strange," Glory says, sipping from Desdemona's drink. "There are a couple friendly ones around."

Carrington shrugs, pulling up his pack and emptying things onto the table. Desdemona's refills, a few letters from Tinker Tom and Drummer Boy, a couple bright twists of taffy and stick candy— Glory takes a bright green taffy and makes happy noises with it glued to her teeth— and a few dog-eared paperbacks.

"Cowgirl romance? Didn't think you were the type," Dez teases, tapping the cover. It features two wide-eyed women earnestly clutching hands, framed by a lariat shaped into a heart.

"I'd be happy to exchange that for your old Jules Verne..."

Glory unsticks the back of her teeth. "Before I forget, we saved a couple jars of that ginger-peach jam for you."

"Any garlic eggplant? Or mint carrots?" He has too much self-control to beg, but he leans forward on the edge of his seat, toes tapping staccato against the floor.

"Mhm. And we even have one last jar of pickled eggs," Desdemona says. Glory leaves them companionably bickering over which books to swap and enters the cellar— and maybe that's another project, to expand the cellar, make it more than rows of jars and pickling and canning equipment— and pulls out the promised items. Jams and jellies and pickles, all of summer packed tight and preserved. Little batteries of sunlight pressed into food. Glory loads up, cool glass clinking in her arms, and even pulls that last jar of pickled eggs with a sigh. She had wrinkled her nose when Desdemona first suggested pickling them with red beets, but they've become a salad favorite. Make a decent snack too.

Oh well. They'll have at least one more big canning day ahead of them.

Glory goes up the stairs again, sets the jars in front of Carrington. She's proud of the way his face creases into a smile— still so strange, when it felt like he'd never smiled at all in the Railroad. But then again she's smiling more these days too.

"These look wonderful," he says, picking up the jam with a distinctly predatory look. Or maybe that's Glory reading too much into it; she loves that jam. "Far cry from that little vegetable plot we had at the Switchboard."

There's years bound there, grief stitched tight beneath the words. Deeper truths under the tongue, buried under a decade of better memories.

"I'm just amazed Tom didn't die of scurvy," Desdemona sighs, and like that, they all breathe again. "Remember how he didn't trust any food we didn't grow ourselves?"

Carrington shrugs, palms up on the table. "I gave him vitamins when I could." He chuckles. It's easier to go back to the trivial parts of nightmare, the bits that still ring funny. "At least when the settlements started taking off, he agreed they couldn't all be infiltrated by nanites."

Small talk and old stories take them through most of the afternoon, until Desdemona looks out the window at the sinking sun and says she should get started on dinner. She starts cutting eggplant as they leave. When Carrington follows Glory out for her evening chores he politely does not comment on the two packs near the door. Dried food, change of socks, ammo, Glory's old minigun. Some fears chart deep maps under the skin.

Maybe that's why Carrington's never settled down.

Once out of the house, Carrington gives Bodie a pat, then wrinkles his nose at the dog's smell. "So, how are you?"

Figures he'd wait until Desdemona's out of earshot.

"Are you asking as my friend or my doctor?" Glory asks, voice flat. She takes a handful of feed, scatters it. The girls were happily scratching for bugs and worms in the garden, but they descend on the new food with gusto.

"Both."

"Memory's still good, no stutters or restarts. I'm not shelled yet, doc."

Carrington tries to reach for the bucket, but she swats at his hand, shooing him away without making contact. No sense overfeeding the girls just because he's feeling guilty. "We just have such limited data on synth longevity," he says, and while it's not quite an apology, there's the shape of it, somewhere under his raised shoulders. "I owe it to you. Especially since you'll outlive me."

'Outlive Desdemona,' he doesn't say.

Glory's mouth tightens. Sour copper on the back of her tongue.

"I am more worried about you humans," she says. She snorts, scoops up Lady Eboshi— a particularly lovely black chicken with a white neck and face— and pets her. Lady Eboshi pips happily, shoving her head into Glory's armpit as Glory strokes her. "We fought together, we've done our parts. You don't owe me anything."

Carrington, mercifully, leaves the tense conversation at that. They come back to a house fragrant with tomatoes and onions and garlic, hot flashes of ginger and savory eggplant cooking on the stove.

"Glory, can you get some parsley and mint?" Desdemona says absently, fanning herself with one hand. "I figured stuffed eggplants would be good for tonight. Maybe some noodles with red sauce?"

"Got it," Glory says, ducking out again to pick the herbs. The parsley breaks easily beneath her thumb, and she gathers the mint to banish sour thoughts. When it overflows her palms, she belatedly realizes she's gathered far more than they really need. At least the chickens will be happy to eat any leftovers.

She returns to the house, hands over the herbs to Carrington. He rolls up his sleeves and starts mincing the parsley, which frees Glory to slit small crosses into a few tomatoes, then to skewer them on the knife and rotate over a free burner on the stove. The flame licks up to the edge of the tomato, the skin bubbling and peeling away from the cuts. She repeats this with a few more tomatoes, then peels them under cold water.

The red sauce is dead simple, really. One of the few things that even Glory can manage. She cuts the tomatoes in quarters, simmers them with garlic and a chunk of butter, lets it sit on the stove. Takes it a while to completely break down, but that'll give the eggplant time to bake.

Ophelia mewls at the door, scratching. Carrington lets her in, then sighs as Asshole wedges his way in after the smaller cat. "Remember Deacon's theory that Dogmeat was a synth?"

Glory rolls her eyes. "Don't remind me." That had been disproven years ago, ever since Dogmeat's first litter of puppies. No matter how good the Institute had gotten at creating synths, they never managed to make ones that could self-replicate in the usual ways. Even now, Glory wonders if it was true that they couldn't, or if that was another way of exercising control over their creations.

Desdemona chuckles, closing the oven door. "Unfortunately, yes."

"How do you think he would have done with Asshole?"

"Dogmeat or Deacon?" Glory asks, drifting into the living room with Desdemona. The kitchen just needs time and heat, and it's more comfortable to sit in the living room with the windows open and the fan in slow whirr overhead. She scoops up a battered pack of playing cards, flipping them in a rough shuffle.

Carrington snorts. "Dogmeat's a gentleman. I meant Deacon."

"One asshole to another? I figure they'd get on fine."

"Come now, we have better things to do than gossip about old friends behind their backs," Desdemona says easily, taking the cards from Glory. She deals out cards, taps them against the table before setting down the deck. "Like gambling. I won't swap you for _Around the World in 80 Days_ , but I'll play you for it."

"You drive a cruel bargain," Carrington sighs, but they play cards with occasional breaks for Glory to stir her sauce and start boiling the noodles. Finally Desdemona's inner sense of timing goes off and she goes back to the kitchen, leaving Carrington several hands behind and Glory wisely out of the argument.

Dinner's quiet. Carrington twirls noodles on his fork and makes appreciative noises around his eggplant. He helps wash up the dishes without prompting, and they sit at the cleared table playing cards until Carrington starts yawning. Desdemona politely sends him to his room and Carrington impolitely grumbles that she's not his mother even as he obeys. Ophelia trails after Carrington, twining herself about his ankles.

Glory and Desdemona go back to their room and change into their pajamas. Glory kisses the back of Desdemona's neck, the pale strip of exposed flesh between scalp and shirt collar, squeezes the soft swell of Desdemona's belly.

Desdemona chuckles, twists to kiss Glory's cheek. "Quit squeezing my dough."

"But I love your challah," Glory chuckles, pulling back the blankets. "Wanna...?" She waggles her eyebrows. Carrington in the next room is not a deterrent, considering they had even less privacy with the Railroad. They've long ago mastered the art of the silent rendezvous.

Desdemona shakes her head. "Not tonight, babe." She says it apologetically, voice soft. "Would rather spoon."

"Big spoon or little spoon?"

"Little spoon tonight."

They shuffle into bed, Glory's knees slotting neatly behind Desdemona's, nose tickling into the loose hair behind Desdemona's ear.

"You okay, babe?" Glory asks quietly.

"Just tired," Desdemona says.

They lay like that for several long minutes. An owl hoots, far away, over the low thrum of the generator.

Glory chews the inside of her cheek, probing an old question like a rotted tooth. "You ever— ever wish we'd had kids?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Just thinking about Dogmeat. Shaun. Tom and Drummer Boy."

Desdemona squeezes Glory's hand, cups it gently in her own. "No. Already had kids, before the Railroad, and it was just— it was hard. Doesn't get any easier. And we've made our own place, our own family. All the scattered Railroad and the synths out there who get to live on their own terms. Can't forget Baby and Ophie and Asshole and Bodie and..."

It's a familiar litany, Desdemona listing the mare, the cats, the dogs, and every single one of the chickens, but Glory welcomes it anyway.

"...and with all of them, we've got the biggest family around, anyway," Desdemona says, words blurring soft as she yawns. "Do you want kids?"

"No," Glory mutters. "They're cute, but the best part is giving 'em back to their parents."

. . .

Glory wakes up with a mouthful of Desdemona's hair, her wife half-sprawled over her with their legs intertwined. Glory's arm stretches overhead, knuckles in the headboard. Glory spits the hair out, gentle as she can, and slowly untangles from Desdemona. Might as well let Dez sleep in.

Glory brushes her teeth and wanders into the kitchen. Ophelia's on the counter, sniffing at the giant egg. Occasionally she mewls and bats it with a paw.

Glory rushes to scoop her up. "Ophie, bad, bad," she scolds, promptly undermining it as she scratches behind the cat's ears.

Ophelia peeps indignantly.

The egg peeps back.

Glory freezes.

Slowly, she turns to re-examine the egg. Small cracks have formed in the shell, occasionally jumping as something from inside taps against it. The sound is strangely sharp, like if Glory were rapping her knuckles into the table, though much softer. When Glory touches the egg, she feels the faint warmth and movement of something inside.

Glory's hatched enough chicks to know what's next.

"Oh shit."

Carrington is indignant apologies, wiping his palms on his trousers. "I swear to you, I did _not_ know it was about to hatch." He sets his hands on the kitchen table, though not— Glory notices— too close to the egg that she's accusingly plopped in the middle of it.

"It's gonna be a fucking deathclaw! In our house!" Glory hisses.

"A baby deathclaw," Desdemona points out, voice soft. Deceptively calm, as she pinches the bridge of her nose. "If it's a danger, at least it'll be easy to dispose of."

" _If_? It's a deathclaw!"

"Why didn't you smash it already then?" Desdemona asks, voice still mild as milk.

Glory bites her tongue, fuming. "Sure, I can just get a hammer, and—" She lifts her fist, slamming it into her palm.

"It's a baby."

"Right now, it's an egg," says Carrington.

The first shard of egg falls off to expose a strip of membrane. The tapping intensifies, a small piece of— horn? Beak? Probably beak— breaking into the air. The thing inside peeps again, and another piece of shell falls free. Then more, more, hitting the table like soft rain on dry earth. Glory grabs her mug— not a hammer, no, but at least it's _something_ — as the creature makes its way out, a glistening grey glob of limbs and oversized hands and one long, skinny tail dragging behind it.

It peeps balefully, swinging its head.

"Oh! It's adorable," Desdemona sighs.

The thing turns in her direction and the peeping intensifies as it stumbles towards her.

Glory raises her mug, heart hammering up her throat. "Dez, watch out!"

Desdemona croons inanely, holding out her hands as the thing snuffles forward, falling into her arm and mouthing at her thumb.

"It's hungry," Carrington observes.

Glory tries very hard not to cackle. "Of course it is! And _we’re_ on the menu!"

"We could probably feed it bits of scrambled egg, maybe some chopped meat." Desdemona bounces the deathclaw in her lap, considering. "We have some molerat jerky, maybe if we soak it a bit to make it soft—"

"We're not keeping it, are we?" Glory asks. What she'd thought was the sharp tang of anxiety is rapidly turning into the sour scream of full-blown panic.

"Adult deathclaws wouldn't chop food up for the babies," Carrington points out. "And they don't lactate, so they have to get calcium somewhere. Whole chunks of bone, bits of carcass..."

"Hey, don't feed it with your hands!" Glory yelps as Desdemona offers the thing a strip of jerky. "Look, do you really want it getting used to eating from your hands?"

Desdemona grins, patting the creature on the head. It chirps, butting against her palm, tail outstretched for balance. "So we _are_ keeping it."

"I never said that!"

Carrington sighs. "What are you naming it? How do you even tell its sex?"

" _I'm_ not poking that cloaca."

Dez snorts, scratching experimentally at the thing's snout, then neck, searching until she finds a spot at the front of its chest that makes it emit a grinding purr. "Like genitals mean anything. How about 'Fluffy'? Nice, gender-neutral—"

Glory goes cross-eyed with indignation.

"You really intend to call a deathclaw 'Fluffy'?" Carrington asks skeptically.

Dez chuckles. "Why not? We already have a cat named Asshole."

Glory laces her fingers together, clutching her palms in front of her face, square between her eyes. "Dez, what if it _eats_ our other animals?"

"'They,' not 'it,'" Dez says mildly.

"Dez. Really."

Dez's face softens. The crows' feet around her eyes seem gentler, somehow, the worry lines around her mouth gone shallow. "Fluffy is small, helpless, and without family. What else can we do?"

Glory swallows. She tries to lock eyes with Carrington, argue him to her side, but he's already pushed his chair back from the table, hands up and shaking his head. She tries pointing to Ophelia, as the smallest and most likely victim of Fluffy's inevitable predation, but the traitorous cat's already jumped on the table to sniff Fluffy. The two exchange a series and chirps and peeps, Ophie sniffing at Fluffy's tail and Fluffy returning the favor.

Glory sighs.

"Okay, but let's set some ground rules."

. . .

Rule one: No feeding Fluffy with bare hands.

Dez tries using leather gloves at first, until Carrington points out the possibility of a full-grown deathclaw attempting to sneak morsels off (and of) someone's fingers. Desdemona quickly repurposes a set of bent metal tongs, gripping them to offer Fluffy chunks of meat— bones and all, which Fluffy devours with horrific delight— and the occasional raw rabbit.

Rule two: Fluffy is not allowed in the house.

This rule quickly collapses, as Fluffy has obviously fallen in love with Dez, emitting a rumbling screech and, when that fails to evoke sympathy, peeping pathetically when locked outside.

"We shouldn't have fed it in the house in the first place!" Glory says through gritted teeth. She grips the edge of the door, gently thumping her skull against the frame.

"'Them,' not 'it,'" Dez corrects her.

Rule three: Fluffy must get along with all the other animals.

Desdemona makes the introductions as Glory does the morning chores— feed and watering wait for no woman— and, much to Glory's disappointment, none of the animals seem particularly bothered by the baby predator in their midst.

("The dogs and cats are predators too," Carrington points out. Glory grits her teeth.)

Bodie and Sam bark and sniff Fluffy with great excitement, wagging tails spraying dust behind them. Baby exhales softly, one long whuff of exhaustion, and continues napping. Even the chickens adopt Fluffy into their clucking hierarchy as Fluffy joins them in pecking at bits of seed and crickets.

Asshole's fur rises and he mrowls threatening at Fluffy when it— they— first approach him, but he reluctantly consents to being licked by Fluffy's surprisingly long tongue before stalking away. Since this is how Asshole behaves with most other members of the family, including Carrington, Glory can hardly count this as a victory.

. . .

Despite Desdemona's early fears of malnutrition, the week passes and Fluffy apparently thrives on their twice-daily feedings of meat and hard-boiled eggs (shells and all), supplemented by the occasional snaps at frogs, crickets, and... corn?

"Deathclaws aren't vegetarian!" Glory groans.

Carrington chuckles, using the tongs to offer Fluffy a square of fresh watermelon. Fluffy's already snapped up half a cob of corn, and noses at the new fruit with interest before gulping it down. "Neither are dogs, but they're not exclusive carnivores either."

"Maybe it's the crunch?" Desdemona guesses, setting another hardboiled egg and half a corn cob on the floor. Fluffy sniffs excitedly at them both, tail wriggling furiously, then devours egg and corn alike. "I just wish this weren't so much guesswork. Do you think you can ask around, see if anyone's got any ideas of how to raise them?"

"This is hardly _What to Expect When You're Expecting_ ," he says dryly, carefully wrapping his pickles and preserves in thin towels before setting them in his pack. He's leaving in the morning, and Dez has finally agreed to trade her Verne novel for the cowgirl romance and a battered copy of _Frankenstein_.

"I don't know. Pre-war books on animal care, if anyone's raised geckos, _something_."

"If I tell people you have a baby deathclaw, you'll probably get interested researchers."

"Researchers?" Glory yelps, not entirely because Fluffy's nipping her fingers. She shoos them away by tapping her knuckles on their snout. Dez claims it's affection, but Glory suspects taste-testing. "So we'll have people visiting?"

Carrington chews his lip. "Well, maybe just one person. If you trust me to tell her. She _is_ a synth..."

. . .

And of course that _one_ synth is the person who took G5's chassis, the French-accented doctor who helped blow up the Institute ten years back.

Ten years, and seeing her face isn't any less of a kick in the teeth.

"This is delightful!" she trills, and maybe Curie, Ophie, and Fluffy should set up their own choir of musical chirps, since they're all tuned to the same registers.

What is 'delightful' is Desdemona training Fluffy, using gobbets of raw meat and attentively followed by Sam and Bodie. When Dez says 'sit,' three butts hit the ground; two furry, one scaly. When Dez says 'stay,' three sets of tails wag in unison. When Dez says 'come,' three pets come bounding towards her, begging for treats to be dropped into their gaping mouths.

"It's still a wild animal," Glory mutters.

Curie grins, white-toothed and radiant, hair stuck up in cowlicks at the back and a tiny crinkle in her nose just the way G5 did, but—

She also wears a white coat, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, the pockets stuffed with pens and notebooks and odd clinking vials with samples of leaves and soil and whatever else catches her interest. When she shook Glory's hand, she carried the faint whiff of hubflower and unfamiliar soap, her hands soft and unlined. Any calluses she had have long gone away.

It might be G5's chassis, but G5 hasn't been home in over a decade.

(And it feels— wrong, maybe, to still feel this way when Glory's wife, her own _living_ wife, is right there, cooing and laughing with dirt smudged on her nose and a floppy hat shading her face, but Glory can't forget that easy. Not unless her own memory gets overridden, at least. Or she starts losing data.)

"All domestic creatures started as wild once, no? I heard tales of tamed deathclaws kept in coops for their eggs, or gecko ranchers who raised them for meat and eggs. It is not an impossibility." Curie turns her pencil, taps the eraser against the page. "If it is agreeable, I would like to chart Fluffy's growth. If you would be so good as to keep a log of their daily feedings and weight gain, week by week, that would be most helpful! And if you start to get eggs—"

Glory flinches, imagining the god-awful yowling of a deathclaw in heat. Shit.

"— then a documentation of the daily or weekly yield would be excellent!"

Curie spends an endless amount of time clucking and cooing over Fluffy. She takes measurements of Fluffy's height, various lengths from snout to tail, length of tail, and length of the nubby horns just starting to bud. She chatters excitement when the egg tooth falls off and carefully examines Fluffy's conical teeth, all which Fluffy endures with great patience. Curie generally acts so annoyingly pleased about everything that Glory flees to Baby's stall for some measure of peace.

"I'm not crazy, am I?" she mutters against Baby's neck.

Baby lets out a long, flustery sigh, lips blowing.

"That's a wild animal, and I'm the only one who seems bothered by it."

Baby lips at Glory's hand, ears twitching.

Glory digs into her pocket for a carrot, giving it a cursory scrub with the edge of her sleeve. "It was already bigger than Ophie when it hatched. Now it's about as big as Sam. And we know how big it's gonna get."

Baby opens her mouth expectantly, and Glory puts the carrot on the flat of her palm, offering it up.

"Sure, now it's cute when Fluffy wants to hide under the bed. But when they can't even fit in the house?" Glory shakes her head, voice rising over the sound of Baby's contented crunching. "And we're just a small farm! How are we gonna afford feeding them when they get bigger? Fluffy's not gonna eat corn forever!"

Baby bumps her nose against Glory's shoulder, and Glory leans against the solid warmth of the mare. "And Dez is so _happy_ with Fluffy," she adds miserably. "And now my ex— who isn't _really_ my ex, but looks a helluva lot like her— is here and I'm just the asshole hiding in the barn."

Asshole saunters over, glaring at the challenge to his title.

Glory groans.

"No worries, cat. You're still the biggest asshole around."

Asshole plops his ass in the ground, flicks out his claws, and licks his paw with great smugness.

. . .

"Oh babe, you're beautiful, you're gorgeous, you're so fucking hot," Glory murmurs, licking under Dez's ear, cupping the curve of her ass and rolling on top of her to press her thigh between Desdemona's legs, to smother her with kisses and to press their bodies together. God, but Glory loves Dez's body; the spread and sprawl of it, the gentle rolls and dimples and valleys of flesh, all sorts of unmapped wonder that she can discover fresh each and every day. She kisses the dark pink of Desdemona's nipple, flicks her tongue over the areola, tugs the nipple between her teeth.

Dez moans, arches. Pushes herself up against Glory, nails digging into Glory's shoulder. Bites her lip, swats the bed, groping blindly until she finally grabs the vibrator. It's a clunky thing with a thick handle and a padded head, with the sort of deep, rumbly vibrations that send Glory's teeth chattering. No power pack to speak of, gotta keep it plugged in to work, but god that thing _works_. Works beautifully, especially when Glory takes their softest, fluffiest towel and folds it into a neat square. She sets it over the front of Dez's underwear, the terrycloth tickling Dez's inner thighs and making her giggle.

Glory sucks the tender skin beneath Desdemona's breast, nibbles and pulls as Desdemona gasps. Pulls away to leave a slick purple bruise, chuckling. "You're pretty as a picture. Just love marking you up," Glory whispers, low-voiced and husky. She takes the vibe from Desdemona, flicks it to the lowest setting and tests it against the hard bud of Dez's nipple, nibbles and sucks and switches sides as Desdemona wriggles, squirms. "Ready for this on your clit?"

"Mhm, mhm," Desdemona whimpers, face shining and she shivers, squirms. Nods frantically.

Glory rolls sideways, tilts herself so the vibe's head rests on the towel, and lets Desdemona shift so it hits her spot perfectly. The towel helps diffuse the vibes, makes it easier on tender bits, but also makes it harder for Glory to put it in position.

Desdemona moans and sighs, clamps her hand over Glory's wrist and bucks her hips, and she's beautiful, she's good, she's a hundred different sorts of wonder and Glory would just love to make her come like this, over and over, until—

A distinctive screech sounds outside their door.

Desdemona startles, eyes snapping open, pupils wide and glassy.

Glory shakes her head, kisses her jaw. "No, baby, we can just finish—"

Fluffy wails again.

"We should go check on them," Desdemona says, words slurry.

Glory groans and switches the vibe off. She rolls off the bed, lands on her heels with a heavy thud and stomps to the door. "What do you want?" she snaps.

Fluffy immediately barrels past her legs, jumps on the bed, and snuggles up under Desdemona's chin just as Dez hastily tugs the blankets up to under her armpits.

"I think they were lonely," Desdemona sighs. She gives a lopsided smile, scratching the ridge of Fluffy's nose. "Sorry, love. Sex called on account of baby."

"I just wanted to make you feel good," Glory says plaintively. She tries sliding back into bed, but Fluffy's tail takes up most of the space now, and when she tries shifting, Fluffy's hind claws dig into her thigh. She winces.

"You _did_ make me feel good, it was _wonderful_. We’ll just finish some other time, okay?"

Ophelia hops onto the bed, settling into the curve of Fluffy's tail. She licks her paw.

"We're gonna need to start trimming Fluffy's claws," Glory says, low and gloomy.

"We don't trim Ophie or Asshole's."

"But they're not deathclaws."

"What if raiders come? Do you really want poor Fluffy to be defenseless?"

Glory pinches the bridge of her nose. "Fluffy's gonna grow into over eight feet of scales and teeth."

Fluffy's already bigger than Bodie, a solid eighty-two pounds according to their last weigh-in. Summer's gone and past, fall's made it’s way into winter. The apples are harvested, the cellar is full of apple butter and pumpkin and all the ways they're gonna make themselves fat and happy over the cold months, but Fluffy is cold-blooded (or 'ectothermic' as Curie so helpfully noted) and needs to bask in the sun and huddle up in the warm kitchen, but...

"I'm pretty sure Fluffy can already kill a man,” Glory adds gloomily.

"Won't."

" _Can_. Maybe we just need to put, like. Rubber tips over their claws?" Glory says, wincing as Fluffy's claws dent the mattress. Dent, not break. Yet.

"Oh, that's a good idea. We can ask Curie for help."

Glory's gut twists sour. Just another reminder of how their lives have changed.

And Glory’s crowded out of her own bed.

Desdemona's already drifting to sleep again, breathing soft and even.

Glory sighs, and leans over to kiss her wife's cheek. She shuffles to the kitchen and helps herself to a slice of pecan pie, munching as she shuffles through their miscellaneous correspondence. Another letter from Tom and Drummer Boy, written in Drummer Boy's careful, looping print. A blocky letter from PAM, which Glory tucks under Dez's magnetic chessboard, still frozen in the moves of their current game. She notes that Dez hasn't yet updated PAM's latest move. Probably distracted by Fluffy. One hand-drawn postcard from Deacon, with a picture of a spiky green cactus wearing sunglasses.

Glory finishes the pie, scraping her fork against the plate. She quietly scrubs it clean and puts it in the drying rack, before she grabs a blanket and settles in on the couch.

. . .

"Be good," Dez murmurs, standing on tip-toe to kiss Glory's nose, mouth, collar. Her breath is sweet with mint, a lingering warmth from their morning tea.

Glory tugs her hands and kisses the top of her head. "I'm always good."

Dez chuckles. "I know."

"Be careful, alright?"

Glory doesn't have to specify any further. Even with the Minutemen protecting the settlements and caravan routes, there are always risks. The yao guai might be hibernating, but there are still feral dogs, roaming deathclaws, raiders. Their farm is on the edge of the patrols anyway. Dez has her pistol and her rifle, both cleaned and inspected by Glory herself just last night.

"You too," Dez says, and they exchange one last, lingering kiss, wind plucking at their sleeves, before Dez leads Baby along. Bodie and Sam trot with them to the edge of the farm, but only Sam follows Dez out on the monthly trek to Starlight. Dez and Glory usually alternate, but because of Fluffy, well—

Fluffy lets out an indignant scronk and Glory tugs at the back of their collar with one hand. "No, kiddo, she can't take you." Glory'd already punched two new holes in the leather last week, and would need to add a few more before winter's over. Damn deathclaw.

Fluffy's scronk fades to a dissatisfied warbling, and Glory tries not to feel guilty about this being Fluffy's first time apart from Dez.

Asshole hisses.

Life goes on.

. . .

That night, a familiar screech rouses Glory from bed. She stumbles to the door, scowls blearily at Fluffy.

"She's not here, you know. And I don't like you," she informs them.

Fluffy pushes through the door and hops on the bed anyway, the frame groaning under their weight. Ophie peeps and rolls over, purring.

Glory sighs. Like hell she's gonna be chased from her own bed again.

She tucks herself back under the blankets, back to back with the deathclaw.

. . .

Glory wakes up nose-to-snout with Fluffy, wrinkling her nose at the smell of lizard-musk and raw meat.

Winter's the quiet season on the farm, with a routine of its own. Glory waters the herbs they've moved indoors, rubs her thumb against the basil and savors its tiny breath of summer. Then a quick jaunt outdoors, bundled up with a knit cap pulled low over her ears, breath fogging the air as she checks on the plants and animals. Light waterings only, and she unwraps the protective tarps around the herbs still outdoors. Some gardeners raze them to regrow in spring, but Desdemona never had the heart for that kind of ruthless.

Lady Eboshi and the rest of the chickens cluck peaceably in their coop as Glory gathers the morning eggs. She scatters corn, then goes to the barn to check on Bodie. Asshole's napping in the rafters, his stubby tail hanging down and twitching.

"Won't be long," Glory announces, thumbs in her pockets and resisting the urge to scrunch her nose.

Asshole blinks phlegmatically.

Fluffy chirps.

Glory makes breakfast— scrambled eggs with pepper paste— and curls up on the couch with the cowgirl romance. She's tried reading it three times already, failing each time even though Dez swears it's her new favorite.

("So you're gonna keep this one?" Glory had asked.

Dez chuckled, knees tucked to her chest. "For a while, maybe. But things you love are meant to be shared, not hoarded.")

It's not like it's a bad book, even. But every time Glory starts dissolving into it, something distracts her. The whistling kettle, a distant bark. Fluffy's gravelly snore.

Bodie barks again. High, alarmed.

A gunshot.

Glory bolts up, dropping the book on the couch. She grabs the armored coat hanging in the front closet. Still fits— thank the Institute for half-assed favors— and she grabs her minigun, fingers numb with cold. The electric-sour taste of circuits stings the back of her throat.

She goes out the front— closer to the barn, closer to those assholes— and sprints, ground crunching beneath her boots. Stealth was never her style, and if they shot Bodie—

Three— no, four— figures in the distance in mismatched leathers and metal. Two with pistols, one with a spiked bat. The fourth's got a shotgun. All four framed against the barn doors, Bodie howling inside, loud enough that they're not watching for her. Shitty, undertrained assholes. Must be new to this. Or dumb as shit.

Glory's faced worse odds, worse people. Lost one home already, when the Switchboard went dark.

Not gonna happen again.

She unleashes hell. The brisk rattle of her gun sweeps sideways, not quite spray-and-pray but she’s damn sure she’s making them _pray_.

One goes down, mowed with blood and gut seeping from their abdomen, another's leaking. The air's thick with shit, perforated bowels. That'll kill slow, sure, but Glory wants them gone fast.

The one with the shotgun shouts, yells. He levels up the shotgun and Glory ducks sideways, fires. Minigun beats shotgun, rat-a-tat fury, lightning and thunderous echo.

The other two startle— just the two left now, one with the pistol, the other with the bat, and they duck into the barn. The pistol-wielder fires a shot as they turn, but it sings high over Glory's head. Second shot comes lower, closer to true— and maybe when she's got the chance to sit down and shake, she'll think about the rush of the bullet over her scalp, the difference that one footstep made, her sinking down into that tread just as the raider fired off that shot— but Glory fires again, again. Barn door makes good concealment, not cover, it won't stand up to the barrage, and a gurgling scream tells her she hit one of them.

She kicks the door open, bares her teeth.

(This is _he_ r place, _their_ place, ten years spent on the same patch of land, sweat and trust and love in every inch of soil, every mended fence and every animal. Like hell some petty assholes with two-cap weapons are gonna take it from her.)

Bodie's cowering in the corner, poor baby, and Glory spares a glance to make sure Bodie's okay, Bodie's not bleeding, and raises her gun.

The two raiders weave apart; gunman breaks left, the one with the bat breaks right. Glory swings her gun, ducks sideways as the barrels start spinning up again. She spins, kicks, stomps at the knee of the guy with the bat. Off-balance, she lands heavy on her foot instead of breaking bone. She swings her gun and bashes him in the shoulder with the barrel. Fires dead-center into his chest, leaving a perforated, sucking chest wound. She kicks him to the floor.

Footsteps behind her, the gunman. She can barely hear over her own gunshot-shattered ears, but she spins, one long trail of bullets from the gun spraying walls, door, and the man's got his gun up—

Asshole drops from the rafter with an operatic yowl. Four fuzzy paws of needle-claws land on the man's face, blood raking down his scalp. The raider drops the gun, yanking the cat by the scruff of the neck and throwing Asshole into the wall.

Glory shoots him dead, then kicks the corpse in the head for good measure.

"Hey, Asshole? You okay?" she asks.

Asshole rolls unsteadily to his feet, no more cross-eyed than usual, and hisses.

Glory puts down the gun and kneels beside the cat. She checks him over, feels his ribs, murmurs soothing inanities as she probes for tender spots. Asshole tolerates this with only a few perfunctory swipes of his paw, finally squirming free to go hide in Baby's stall.

Glory checks Bodie next, the dog shaking and whimpering. Scared, but unharmed.

A long shadow crosses the barn floor.

Glory turns.

Silhouetted in the doorway is another raider with a shotgun.

Stupid, stupid— left her minigun on the floor, didn't check for stragglers, only option is to rush them— and she can't even see the person's face, can't make out details, just lowers her shoulder and lunges forward, praying desperately to knock them over before she gets shot—

A glorious, angry _scronk_ shatters the air, and Fluffy leaps onto the raider's shoulders. Those dagger-like claws, the ones that haven't yet punctured the bed, enter the raider's skull like a ripe melon.

The raider topples forward, Fluffy latched onto their back.

Glory swallows, heart rattling up her throat.

"Uh. Hey. You— probably shouldn't eat that," she croaks, finally.

Fluffy looks up with red teeth and bloody claws, tail wagging.

"Thank you, but— I just can't tell Dez that I fed you human flesh," Glory adds apologetically. "Uh. I can give you some apples, though."

Fluffy chirps.

. . .

When Desdemona comes home, Glory tells her everything.

Desdemona hugs her dizzy, then crouches to embrace Bodie, heedless of Bodie’s slobbery enthusiasm and tail-thumping ecstasy. She commends Asshole and Fluffy for their bravery. Asshole glares, turns around, and sits with his butt facing her, heedless of his accolades. Fluffy peeps happily. 

After all appropriate congratulations and comfort (“Are you hurt?” “No, but are you…?” “ _No_.”) have been exchanged, they retreat to the living room.

"At least you and Fluffy bonded, now," Desdemona says, sitting on the couch with Ophie in her lap. The cat purrs contentedly, kneading a cushion.

"Yeah," Glory says, scratching the ridge of Fluffy's nose. Fluffy's got their head propped on her knee, eyes milky with their third eyelid flicked shut. "But Dez... what about when Fluffy gets bigger? You know this can't last forever."

Desdemona sighs, but stays silent.

Glory gnaws her cheek. They still have enough food to make it through winter, and if they need to go hunting, well. Fluffy can pull their own weight. The whole matter of keeping a deathclaw in the house can wait until the seasons change. They can _talk_ about it, work out something better than resentment or exclusion.

"At the very least, we're gonna need a bigger bed," Glory adds.

Desdemona bursts into laughter.


End file.
